tag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:/trending?page=17Journal of Brief Ideas: Ideas from the last week2022-05-29T03:00:52Ztag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/9442022-05-29T03:00:52Z2022-06-17T02:45:18ZCommercialization of Buddhist sacred trees to correct disconnections from naturehttps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6644359Enlightenment is the understanding of the universal facts while improving mental condition in to a supreme level. Last twenty eight Buddhas who attained this status have undergone the deep meditation, reflecting on his experience of life, determining to penetrate its truth while seated beneath a tree in different times (Conze,2003;Gowans,2004;Sikarwar,2016;Wright, 2016).Assuming this special tree was not selected only due to plant characteristics such as nature of fruiting, thorny, shady or the wide availability in India at the time of each Buddha, but to receive the support from special chemical properties via plant structures for energy exchanges, purification of mind and body systems, relaxation or stress reduction etc., based on wisdom and understanding. Analyzing the properties of these tree species will lead, to separate special chemical substances or identify structures for development of products and services e.g. in tree therapy and plant therapy while providing clues on nature’s support for enlightenment.
Reference
Conze, E.,2003. Buddhist meditation. Courier Corporation.
Gowans, C.,2004. Philosophy of the Buddha: An Introduction. Routledge.
Sikarwar, R.L.S.,2016. Saga of Indian sacred plants. Indian Ethnobotany: Emerging Trends. Joghpur: Sci. Publ, pp.162-180
Wright, D.S., 2016. What is Buddhist enlightenment?, Oxford University Press
Premarathne, Kapilatag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/9382022-05-02T09:59:53Z2023-09-03T18:11:57ZProblems in Erzya subject-object-conjugation ambiguityhttps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6643877The Mordvin languages, Erzya and Moksha, are known for their subject and subject-object marking. The cellular structure and usage in the sibling languages diverge. Here, I discribe phenomena in Erzya.
The subject-object marking in Erzya involves ambiguity and non-ambiguity for 28 non-reflexive relations.
In the non-past indicatitve, these relations are represented by 15 formatives that can be divided into groups of ten non-ambiguous, 3 two-way ambiguous, and two six-way ambiguous formatives.
Non-ambiguity comprises pairs of specific singular arguments and singular subjects with third person plural objects.
Plural subjects with third-person objects are two-way ambiguous.
The remainder comprises two sets of six-way-ambiguous formatives.
Actually, the last set represents seven-way ambiguity, as the third-person-plural form represents an indefinite actor singular or plural.
Thus an example:
«Molʲan lučše vastomot karman, štobu kijak avolʲidʲizʲ nʲejtʲ.» 'Better yet, I'll go and meet you[sg], so that nobody[sg] will see you[sg].'
Problem: the indefinite pronoun (kijak[sg] 'anybody') has a plural counterpart (kitʲkak), and yet the non-specific, indefinite singular is referenced in the subject marking as third person plural. There is an overlap of formatives in four cells.
Questions: Should multiambiguity be seen as default object conjugation marking, and how is the plural indefinite prounoun used?Rueter, Jacktag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/9312022-04-10T15:07:30Z2022-06-17T02:42:55ZOCD AND PYRUVATE DEHYDROGENASEhttps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6643857As set out in NPBR.1. and JBI.2., MAOI OCD cure involves gut TRPA1 activation by radicals*,and vagal/trigeminal change influencing the parabrachial and subthalamic nuclei.3. The subthalamic nucleus is implicated in OCD.4. with ventral subthalamic theta activity inversely-correlated with OCD severity.5. Vagal feedback disruption, with consequently increased pyruvate dehydrogenase complex(PDC) activation by dephosphorylation, reverses brain hypometabolism. Astrocyte dysfunction in OCD.6. suggests increased PDC activation may be significant for OCD cure not only for the TCA cycle and brain energy metabolism, but also linked glutamate-glutamine-GABA cycling, and resultant changes to excitatory/inhibitory balances in neurons. Neurons depend upon this cycling to replenish glutamate via glutamine from astrocytes. Disordered astrocyte/neuronal coupling is seen in the OCD-related Tourette's syndrome, with significant negative correlations between thalamic glutamate levels and premonitory urges.7. Further, pyruvate kinase M1 is an autoimmune target in Tourette's.8.;this immunoreactivity may be clinically relevant to Tourette's and OCD.
*(Sleep deprivation, frequently found antidepressant in humans, has recently been found to cause large free radical increases in mammalian small and large intestines.9.,which may explain this.)
1.Neurology,Psychiatry and Brain Research.5(4):181,8(4):185,10(4):149.
2.Journal of Brief Ideas."OCD,TRPA1s and the vagal fear pathway" 3.Nature.Communications.2021;12:2648. 4.J.Neurol.Neurosurg.Psychiatry.2020;91:1349-1356. 5.Translational Psychiatry.2018.8:118.
6.Experimental & Molecular Medicine.2020.52:1028-1038.
7.BRAIN.2017:140;218-234.
8.J.Neuroimmunol.2006;181(1-2):165-176.
9.Cell.2020.181;1307-1328.
STEWART, JOHNtag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/8992021-12-19T13:34:07Z2022-01-09T15:09:20ZA novel DOAS Retrieval algorithm without light intensity calibrationhttps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5805593Differential optical absorption spectroscopy (DOAS) technology enables accurate real-time monitoring of the concentration of flue gas components and is an effective means of controlling flue gas pollutant emissions at source. In DOAS systems, light source intensity variation is an important factor affecting the long-term reliability of the measurement. To address this issue, a novel calibration-free DOAS inversion algorithm is proposed, which uses a domain broadband cross-section to normalise the narrowband cross-section of gas characteristic absorption, thus obtaining an equivalent absorption intensity parameter, αeq, that is not affected by light source intensity variations. Compared to conventional algorithms, this algorithm does not require complex calculations such as polynomial fitting and signal filtering and is easier to implement in hardware.Wang, YihongLu, Huitag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/8812021-09-18T17:56:54Z2021-11-01T11:43:11ZThe Paradox of Implicit Logrollinghttps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5606090The process of Implicit Logrolling (Buchanan & Tullock,1962) is a form of indirect vote-trading that heavily relies on the bundling of wedge issues. By way of tying specific groupings of policies to attract targeted demographics of voters to a political platform. This political strategy is especially effective in capturing the commitment of single-issue voters. These voters need to tacitly accept the rest of the policies on the political platform to have their one area of interest acknowledged. This is why implicit logrolling is such an effective mechanism in shaping the American political landscape.
Most analysts ignore how voters reconcile selecting programs and political candidates that hold logically inconsistent views. For example, an individual that defends abortion rights on the grounds of a bodily integrity argument concurrently favoring vaccine mandates. Here is where the Paradox of Implicit Logrolling comes in; voters then must rationalize these discrepancies due to the lack of logical consistency. In vote trading, the individual voter expects to make some concessions. However, when these concessions present logical and philosophical contradictions, few people question the conflict. In short, the paradox describes how people are willing to accept contrary political positions if parceled with a party or policy they favor.
Clark, Petertag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/8752021-08-14T17:00:25Z2021-11-17T18:20:09ZPerspectives on coffee culture: Ge’ez conundrumshttps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5502215Ethiopia is the cradle of coffee culture, yet early evidence for it is scant. Does the Ge’ez word for coffee reveal clues? I propose an etymological link to the Zorastrian Emperor of Persia, Khosrow I (or II), reflecting contemporaneous Aksumite ‘anti-coffee’ sentiments.
Ge’ez, used in Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo liturgy since the fourth century, is traced to the first century emergence of Aksum(1). Ge’ez for coffee is Etse Kusra/Khusra (Etse=plant)(2). Few early manuscripts exist(1). The fifteenth century Dǝrsanä Ṣǝyon probably reflects earlier traditions: coffee is described as ‘a devilish evil tree’; kusra as traded with Moslems but strictly forbidden for Christians(3).
Tadesse(2) links kusra to Asian words, including eunuch. In Persian, kusra can mean ‘the habit of drinking much wine’(4). Semantic shifts from ‘wine’ to ‘coffee’ are noted in other languages. Alternatively, or concomitantly, the origin could be a name. Likely an enemy: kusra shares the Ge’ez consonants of ‘abominable’(3).
Khosrow I ‘Anushirvan’ was a powerful enemy in the sixth century, so was his grandson Khosrow II ‘Parviz’ in the seventh. Transliterations of Khosrow include ‘Khusrau’(5) and ‘Khusra’(6). Furthermore, Anushirvan likely knew of coffee. He ousted Aksum from Yemen, and actively sought out medical knowledge from other cultures(5).
Gonot-Schoupinsky, Freda N. tag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/8502021-05-20T11:04:35Z2021-06-26T11:52:01ZDelivery of Grocery items before demand https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4898476To delivery of the items before demand, it is important to know the monthly demands of the various families. so collect the information like size of family, festival celebration, possibilities of guest arrival, daily and monthly demand of various items, mode of payment, etc. and then analyse the same. From this information local shop keeper can have the idea about the monthly usage of different grocery items. That’s why shop keeper can maintain the inventory according to the demand of the customer. Here the concept of Vendor Managed Inventory has to be used. In a vendor managed inventory (VMI) concept, the vendor takes responsibility for managing the inventory of the customer without the need of orders from the customer side to be placed. Therefore, the vendor can optimise capacity planning, while the customer has to improve forecast accuracy. The successful implementation of the VMI completely depends upon proper communication between the customer, vendor and suppliers. By implementation of this system family members can save lot of time for billing and can spend with loving ones and hence can improve the productivity of families.
Ardak, Pankajtag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/8492021-05-18T05:09:52Z2021-08-08T21:13:04ZBackward stepwise elimination: A model-based method for nonlinear dimension reductionhttps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4775143In multidimensional data modeling, dimension reduction is not intuitive. Forward feature selection is usually deceptive. That is, a strongly related feature may have a small correlation coefficient (near zero) to the objective, especially when the target model is nonlinear. Therefore, we suggest using backward stepwise elimination (BSE) for dimension reduction. BSE is an iterative model-based method. It starts from an all-feature model and iteratively eliminates the feature which does not significantly affect the goodness of the surrogate model until no more features could be eliminated without downgrading the model goodness. The surrogate model could be constructed with the extreme learning machine, Kriging, or some other machine learning techniques. The goodness of a model could be evaluated with the coefficient of determination $R^2$, or Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient E, etc. Luo, Changtongtag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/7872020-11-10T22:27:43Z2021-01-10T02:06:01ZStatistical significance under low power: A Gettier case?https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4281536Epistemologists and researchers alike are concerned with the conditions under which one can be said to possess knowledge. In philosophy there is a classic account of knowledge as being "Justified True Belief". Under this account, a person can only truly know something if they have a belief that is both justified and true (i.e. knowledge as JTB).
For example: An individual S *knows* a proposition P, iff (if and only if):
i) S believes that P,
ii) P is true, and
iii) S is *justified* in believing that P.
So-called "Gettier cases" arise when an individual is justified in believing something to be true and yet would probably not be said to have knowledge because they only got the right answer as a result of ***luck***.
I posit that some instances in classical (frequentist) statistics are analogous to Gettier cases: A researcher who performs a study with low power, in which the alternative hypothesis is true, AND who observes a significant p-value, could be considered to be "lucky", given the likelihood that they would've observed non-significant findings. Still, they have inferred from that the alternative hypothesis is true; despite the improbability of doing so. It is unclear whether or not this should be considered "knowledge", under JTB.Dunleavy, Danieltag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/7822020-09-11T12:34:34Z2021-02-08T04:20:56Z"I am the law!" - The empirical link between lawyer-lawmakers and legal cost/burdenhttps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4047642For better or worse, a large part of the politicians sitting in national/regional parliaments or similar positions of power are trained law professionals. As lawmakers, they have the unique opportunity to influence the amount of available work for their own profession (particularly if they don't intend to give up all legal practice when they are first elected). A hairdresser cannot mandate more haircuts, neither can a football club owner require people to go watch his team more often. But a lawyer-lawmaker has the opportunity to influence all kinds of policies in order to both (i) limit the competition within his profession (e.g. by requiring a notary to be present for various transactions, controlling the stringency of the bar exam etc.) and (ii) increase the demand for legal services (e.g. through regulations with high compliance costs, and generally increasing the number of regulations).
It would be interesting to examine this issue empirically, e.g. by comparing legislative outcomes in settings where more participating lawmakers have a potential personal business interests to outcomes where this is not the case.
Some food for thought, though (to my knowledge) not linked directly to national legislation: Why do more than 80% of candidates pass all steps of the medical exam on the first attempt (https://www.usmle.org/performance-data/), while first-attempt pass rates for the bar exam are much lower (<50% in some states - https://lawschooli.com/bar-exam-pass-rate-by-state/). Is it harder to be a lawyer than to be a doctor? Or is the industry more interested/successful in limiting competition than the medical profession?
Roesti, Matthias